Crossing the Phantom Pass

In this poignant and riveting personal narrative, Julia Kwong, distinguished professor emerita of sociology, explores her own experience of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis while her father is in the last stage of metastasized prostate cancer. In Crossing the Phantom Pass, she reflects on the medical process and her own emotional roller coaster in encountering this daunting illness in a dual sense.

With academic rigour and accessible prose, Kwong documents the ordinary fears, worries, and urgencies of cancer treatment. She takes readers through the emotional turmoil of her experiences as she undergoes complex surgery and radiation treatment. Kwong manages to complete her treatment just in time to return to Hong Kong and see her father one last time.

Crossing the Phantom Pass explores the uniqueness, as well as the commonalities, embedded in each cancer patient’s experience. Centring knowledge as power and resilience, Kwong integrates practical information and unfiltered realities into the emotional narrative of the book.

Questions of hope, death, and grief intertwine with critiques and commentary on the healthcare system, offering an honest portrayal of one woman’s journey – and a source of solace for others facing similar trials.